The primary aim of the "Novel Excerpts" blog category is to showcase my creative writing, specifically from the novels I've written. Hopefully, these posts will provide a glimpse into my storytelling style, themes, and narrative skills. It's an opportunity to share my artistic expressions and the worlds I've created through my novels.
The Boaz Secrets, written in 2018, is my third novel. I'll post a chapter a day over the next few weeks.
Book Blurb
Fifteen year-old Matt Benson moves with Robert, his widowed father, to Boaz, Alabama for one year as Robert conducts research on Southern Baptist Fundamentalism. Robert, a professor of Bible History and new Testament Theology at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School enlists Matt to assist him as an undercover agent at First Baptist Church of Christ. Matt’s job is to befriend the most active young person in the Church’s youth group and learn the heart and mind of teenagers growing up as fundamentalist Southern Baptists.
Olivia Tillman is the fourteen year old daughter of Betty and Walter Tillman. He is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Christ. Robert and Matt move to Boaz in June 1970, and before high school begins in mid-August, Matt and Olivia become fast friends. Olivia’s life is centered around her faith, her family, and her friends. She is struck with Matt and his doubts and vows to win him to Christ. Over the next year, Matt and Olivia’s relationship blossoms into more than a teenage romance, despite their different religious beliefs.
June 1971 and Matt’s return to Chicago comes too quickly, but the two teenagers vow to never lose what they have, even promising to reunite at college in three years after Olivia graduates from Boaz High School.
The Boaz Secrets is told from the perspective of past and present. The story alternates between 1970-1971, and 2017-2018. After Matt left Boaz in June 1971, life happened and Olivia and Matt’s plans fell apart. However, in December 2017, their lives crossed again, almost miraculously, and they have a month in Boaz to catch up on forty-six years of being apart. They attempt to discover whether their teenage love can be rekindled and transformed into an adult romance even though Matt is 63 and Olivia is 61.
In 2017, Olivia and Matt are quick to learn they are vastly different people than they were as fifteen and sixteen year old teenagers– especially, when it comes to religion and faith. Will these religious differences unite them? The real issue is the secret Olivia has kept. Will Matt’s discovery destroy any chance he and Olivia have of rekindling their teenage relationship?
Chapter 22
December 20, 2017
I had wanted to stay all night at Warren’s with Olivia. At one point, she had invited me but we both soon recognized it wasn’t the best idea acknowledging that it was the perfect fodder for triggering small town gossip. Someone would walk by and see-through these walls. Besides, it wasn’t fair on Warren. He was going through enough right now trying to come to terms with the likely prison terms of both his father and grandfather. Finally, a little before midnight, I tried to convince Olivia to join me at 118 College Avenue and share my cozy sleeping bag for the rest of the night.
I’m glad she had declined my invitation. I had purposely not checked my email until I had left Olivia alone at Warren’s. As soon as I walked in and sat down in one of my beanbag chairs, my afternoon and evening with Olivia seemed to be just a fairy tale. Jerry’s email contained only three words, ‘not a match.’ My first thoughts centered on how Jerry could have made a mistake. I had convinced myself that John and Paul were my biological children. Once I overcame the shock of these three words my mind realized that it was highly unlikely Jerry was wrong. He simply didn’t make mistakes like this in the lab. What hurt more than anything was to think that Olivia was intentionally lying to me. She surely didn’t know that I wasn’t the father of her two children. Of course, she knew that she had had sex with John, I now assumed, no, I now knew he was the father, but she honestly believed that I had gotten her pregnant the night before Dad and I left in June 1971. It was almost a miracle if one believed in miracles.
I hadn’t slept much last night after reading Jerry’s email. At six a.m., I had finally gotten up from my sleeping bag feeling the worst I had ever felt. It was a hundred times worse than any time I had ever woken up after having a horrible dream. This was no dream. To show how much I had doubted that I was John and Paul’s father, I hadn’t thought much at all about what my next move would be if my DNA and theirs had not matched. It didn’t take long to determine what I had to do. John and Paul’s DNA would match their father’s, John Ericson. As it would Danny Ericson’s. I was glad that I had attended Warren and Tiffany’s little get-together for Judith Ericson and Randi Radford. It was there I learned that Judith and John had two children, Danny and Bridget, and that Danny still lived in town, continuing to carry on the hundred-plus year old family real estate business. It was easy to determine what I had to do. What was difficult was figuring out a way to obtain a good sample of Danny’s DNA.
I was lucky Danny was in town and available. I had called Ericson Real Estate & Development. The receptionist had told me he was out of the office showing a house in the Pebblebrook Subdivision. She gave me Danny’s cell phone number. Within fifteen minutes, he had returned my call. I repeated my story and added that I knew his mother and had spent some time with her at Warren’s a few nights ago. He was eager to meet me. I suggested we meet at McDonald’s for coffee and to discuss what exactly I was looking for and then, per his recommendation, go house hunting. My plan worked like a charm. We sat and drank coffee and before we left to see a lodge-type property at the top of Skyhaven Drive, he retired to the bathroom leaving his cup at our table. I had brought my iPad in a small duffle bag and easily hide Danny’s coffee cup inside. When he returned, he seemed to look for his cup but was easily satisfied when I told him I had thrown them away. I endured the next two hours looking at five different houses, but it wasn’t easy. It seemed all Danny wanted to talk about was his father. To Danny, there was no greater man that John Ericson. I didn’t attempt to dissuade him. At 4:15 p.m., I purchased a shipping box at the Boaz Post Office and slid inside Danny’s coffee cup secure in my zip lock evidence bag. Fortunately, the U.S. Postal Service, for $29.99, would deliver my package to Jerry Coyne at the University of Chicago, before noon tomorrow.
I left the Post Office and headed back to College Avenue. All afternoon I had ignored calls from Olivia. I now had five missed calls. I was in no mood to talk but I knew I had to act as though everything was as cozy between us as it was when I left her at Warren’s late last night. She answered my call on the first ring. “I’ve been worried about you. Are you okay?” Hearing her voice made me melt. So, did my big project. It seemed, at least in that moment, it was totally irrelevant who was the father of John and Paul Cummins. Her words, the sound from her words, drew my mind and heart into her arms. I realized I was treading on thin ice. If I took one misstep and gave Olivia the impression that I was investigating her, that I didn’t believe her story about John and Paul, she and I would likely be over. I would never have a chance to be with her as a couple, as hopefully, a married couple. This last thought confirmed that I was losing it.
I shared with her my time with Danny Ericson. It was a plausible story, one she should easily buy into. “These days back in Boaz have convinced me I want to return someday after I retire. I decided that if I owned some real estate here that it would lock down my decision.”
“Matt, can I ask you something very personal?” I had no clue what Olivia was going to ask.
“As always, I’m an open book.” I said realizing that I could lie with the best of them.
“Did your house hunting have anything to do with, well, last night?”
“Maybe.” I wanted to sound mysterious.
“I have to admit that you are all I’ve thought about since you left last night. I know things have happened rather quickly since we both got into town, but it feels so right. It’s like we are meant to be together. I think it has always been that way. If only I hadn’t so screwed up our lives.” Olivia sounded so believable. But, was she?
“Let’s continue our conversation over dinner. How about the Cracker Barrel in Guntersville?” I said trying hard to convince Olivia I had no concerns about her and us.
“Perfect timing. I have been craving their turnip greens and cornbread all day.”
“Ellie Mae, I’ll pick you up at 6:00.”
Olivia responded in her best Southern drawl. “Well, I’ll be.”
I walked inside and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. I stood by the kitchen sink looking out over the small back yard. It was here, for over a year, that Dad and I had been the closest. He had always been extremely busy, with his research project and teaching at Snead. For a few minutes every night, right after dinner, was his time to question me about my day and what I was learning from Olivia and others, including Brother Randy in the youth group. One conversation now came to mind. I had told Dad that I had detected what I called the ‘lying syndrome.’ I had told him that many of the kids, especially the Flaming Five, were masters at deception and lying. I had described how at lunch and at other times I was with them, and when neither Brother Randy or any other adult was around, they were as crude and filthy as someone who had never darkened the doors of a church. I had said it seemed they lived a double life. They knew exactly how to play the church game. It was as though they fully believed the Christian story, bought fully into Jesus as savior but, had no trouble at all acting out against all that was honorable. Dad had said that studies had shown that it was natural for humans to always put their own interests first. It was built in, an evolutionary trait, that helped perpetuate the species. He said that although die-hard Jesus followers deeply believed they were surrendered to Christ, that when they were faced with a conflicting issue, often something their natural selves wanted with a passion, they categorized their conduct. Dad had used the example of a young girl, deeply religious, how she would find a way to rationalize her sexual behavior with her boyfriend. She, if she is sufficiently tempted, will break her vows to God just to please and keep her male friend, especially if he is telling her that he loves her. I never will forget what Dad had said, “when you peel back all the layers of the Christian onion, you don’t find much difference between the conduct of Christians and non-Christians. All humans are just animals dressed up in thin clothes and fragile ideas that easily dissolve when confronted with life-altering choices.”
When I left to go pick up Olivia I still had no clue as to why I had remembered this conversation. It didn’t make much sense. Not in the seventies and not even now.
The Pencil Driven Life 